Ahhh.... Hawaii. My love for Hawaii. As I told you before, I love Hawaii. It's just such a cool place, and I wish I was there. Hopefully me and Chris can take a trip there sometime in the next year or 2. It would be such bliss. But in the meantime, I just have to look at it on the internet. Since it was on my mind, I figured I would give you a few random facts.
That's me in he middle-ish. You see, he one with the big bass? Just kidding, I stole this pic off of the internet. 1.Hawaii’s nickname is the “Aloha State.” The word aloha is derived from the Proto-Polynesian, alofa, and its meanings include “love,” “compassion,” and “mercy.” Aloha is used both as “hello” and “goodbye
2.Because their society was largely an oral rather than a written culture, ancient Hawaiians would learn values and history through trained storytellers. Because the stories were considered sacred, listeners were not allowed to move once a story began
3.Surfing, or heenalu, was invented thousands of years ago by the Polynesians who first settled Hawaii. Their boards weighed more than 150 pounds and measured up to 20 feet
4.When written with the English alphabet, Hawaiian uses only 12 letters and a symbol (‘).
5.Historically, Hawaiians gave leis to their local ali'i, or chief, as a sign of affection. Warring chiefs who wanted to make peace sat down to weave leis together.
6.The hula was originally a form worship performed by highly trained men who were supposedly taught the dance by the Hawaiian god Luka.
7.Ancient Hawaiians believed that the heavier a woman, especially a chieftess, the more beautiful she was.
8.Everyone is a minority in Hawaii—there are no racial majorities. Haoles or Caucasians, constitute about 33% of the population, Japanese about 33%, Filipino-Americans about 16%, and Chinese-Americans about 5%. Most of the population has mixed ethnicities
9.The average projected lifespan of those born in Hawaii in the year 2000 is 79.8 years (77.1 years if male; 82.5 if female), longer than the residents of any other state
10. In the older hotels on the islands, the windows face to the island rather than the ocean, because travelers came by ship which took days even weeks. They were sick of the ocean.
Hawaii's Good Luck Symbols:
Some other Hawiian symbols:
Pinapple is a symbol of friendship, welcome, and good hospitaity. They often give pinapples as gifts, much like we would flowers or wine here.
This symbole means Shaka or hang loose. It's used towards people a lot like Aloha would be, to say Hi, bye, or to symbolize friendship.
Flower leis are used as a greeting, and a symbol of hospitality and honor.
The language
If you would like to learn how to pronounce Hawaiian words, here is a little trick. For instance, the word ali'i the 2 i's would both be sounded out like eee. So ali'i would sound like uhlee-ee. Every vowel is carefully sounded out. Kauai which is one of the islands, looks like it would sound like coway, but actually sounds like Kuhwyie. The word a'ina meaning meal would sound like ah-ee-nah. Here, now you try:
Humuhumunukunukuapuaa
Hahaha... did I throw you off there? The Humuhumunukunukuapuaa is the state fish. It would actually sound like - are you ready for this?
Hoo-moo-hoo-moo-noo-koo-noo-koo-ah-poo-ah-ah.
Say that 10 times fast. Anyways, that is your lesson for the day. If yo would like to extend your lingo, here is a pretty good website - http://www.alohafriendsluau.com/words.html.
Aloha!
